Author Topic: Jaipur  (Read 1606 times)

Offline Willem

  • Chatelain
  • ******
  • Posts: 1477
  • Merit: 118
  • Keeper of the Carcassonne Museum
    • View Profile
    • The Carcassonne Museum
Jaipur
« on: January 07, 2018, 03:39:31 AM »
It has been mentioned a couple of times on the forum, but as I´ve had the chance to play this for the first time yesterday, I think it´s time for a review on Jaipur!

My girlfriends dad came over yesterday with the game, and we decided to give it a try and have a few plays. As we both like games, we were set for the evening!



Jaipur is a small 2-Player card game, all about trading and selling goods to become the sultans Royal Trader!
The aim of the game is to have the most points at the end of every round. It is a best out of three, so winning twice will make you the Sultans Royal Trader.

Game set up
All the tokes are laid aside colour by colour with the highest values on top.
The black bonus tokens are laid besides them.
3 Camel cards and 2 random other cards (can be camels) are laid to be the starting trade market.
Both players get 5 cards and the rest of the cards will be the draw stack to restack the trade market.


In a turn, a player can perform 1 (just 1) action. This will be either taking cards from the market, or selling goods to receive points tokens.
If you want to take goods from the market, you can:
- Take 1 card from the market and replace it from the draw stack
- Take multiple cards and trade them for the same amount of cards from your hand
- Take all Camels from the market
If you want to sell goods, you can:
- Sell 1 type of good (Leather, Spice, Cloth, Silver, Gold, Pearls). You can sell however many cards you want, and will take the same amount of point tokens from that colour.
If you sell 3, 4 or 5 cards of the same type, you also get to take a bonus token that will give you extra points!
The only restriction is that for selling Silver, Gold and Pearls you can only sell in a minimum of 2 cards at a time.



The camels from the market were taken!


I want to have the 2 pearl cards.....


So i trade cards!


4 cards have been sold, so the top 4 tokens are taken + a 4-cards bonus token!

The trick in the game is, do you wait and collect more of the trade goods, risking that your opponent will suddenly sell their goods, taking the most valuable tokens?
Do you take camels or trade goods from the market? This might give your opponent better goods from the draw stack!

You keep playing this until either 3 of the 5 types or point tokes have been taken, or the draw stack is empty.

This is where the camels come in to play!
Whoever has the most camels, gets the Camel Bonus Token, that is worth 5 points!


All tokens/points are counted up and the person with the most points gets a Token of Excellence!


As stated before, it's a best out of 3 rounds, to become the winner!

We really liked this game!
It is fairly easy to start to play this game. We do believe there will  be far more strategie coming in with more plays, but it is not a difficult game to learn the basics of.
I think many of you have already heard of, and have played this game, but for who hasn't; do give it a try!


Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=3750.0
Join me on the journey through the history and oddities of Carcassonne, on My Instagram
1 0 days since i've bought more Carcassonne

Offline jungleboy

  • Viscount Chevalier
  • ****
  • Posts: 3045
  • Merit: 89
  • Nine points!
    • View Profile
    • Spirit of the Camino
Re: Jaipur
« Reply #1 on: January 07, 2018, 05:24:57 AM »
Great review Willem! I like Jaipur a lot as well.

I'm not sure there is much more strategy to be discovered except maybe optimising when you take the camels (i.e. when your opponent has just sold and doesn't have enough cards to take advantage of a full new market).

But luckily the hook of the game (as you mentioned) is so simple yet always works: sell earlier to get the higher value tokens, or wait to collect more to get the bonus tokens?

Offline Decar

  • Owner
  • Chatelain Grand Officier
  • *
  • *
  • Posts: 6719
  • Merit: 317
  • Shut up and take my money!
    • View Profile
    • tehill.net
Re: Jaipur
« Reply #2 on: January 07, 2018, 06:42:06 AM »
A great review Willem, I'll add it to the database.  It's a well regarded game.  I've only had chance to play with my wife during a game-day event (best of three).  We'd just played Targi, which is a different kettle-of-fish (not to be confused with kettlefish).  Ultimately Targi won the the day, but we liked playing Jaipur too.  When we play, we usually get 45-90mins to play in, and we knew we'd find it difficult to get Jaipur the the table.  As you said, it's a great quick-game, the box is small and the rules are easy to explain for new people too!


Share via delicious Share via digg Share via facebook Share via furl Share via linkedin Share via myspace Share via reddit Share via stumble Share via technorati Share via twitter